A sonic wave of Rossini swirls down the halls of George Middle School in North Portland.

It's parent-teacher night, and while adults chat quietly in classrooms about, perhaps, Johnny's tendency to hide little green Army men around school or Emma's love of vampires, it sounds as if Metallica and Motörhead are duking it out in the school's auditorium.

Nobody wrote tunes like Rossini, who outshone other composers during his lifetime (even Beethoven) with jingles that bubble and prance and do everything you want them to. But somehow -- don't ask how -- the sound of rockin' Rossini is thrilling, a sonic wave of Allegro Con Brio that lets the opera's madcap tunes shine through the slash.

That would be Slash in E Minor. The band plays Rossini in the original key, don't you know.

The noise roars over the heads of Jantazha Davis, 5, and a dozen other kids pasted into their seats in the auditorium. I fear the death of hearing tissue, but they're swaying and clapping to the beat.

And that's the point.

Today's kids tend to bypass classical music -- but play it with energy and a sound they know, and they might become fans.

That's the hope of Electric Opera Company, Portland's newest musical nonprofit, founded over a toast last New Year's Eve in a pub in Prague, Czech Republic.

"A few minutes before midnight, we held up our glasses," says Bobby Ray, 23, the group's founder. The moment was right -- he was away from familiar surroundings, buoyed by the festive season, on a European choir trip with the University of Portland -- to start talking about forming a group to broaden classical music.

After the trip, Ray, who graduated in May from the University of Portland with a double major in voice and business, got the score to "The Barber of Seville" and painstakingly rewrote it for electric guitars: a melody line, a bass line and two harmony lines.

View full sizeThomas Boyd/The OregonianThe Electric Opera Company borrows the rumble and thrash of a rock band to spread the gospel of opera. On parent-teacher night, Danielle Larson tries to change
perceptions of opera by singing an aria from "The Barber of Seville" to kids at George Middle School. "I just loved the result, the new energy of it," he says. "My generation loves that sound. It appeals to modern ears."

Ray assembled a dozen guitar players, students and recent grads from the University of Portland, and assigned parts. In April, a month before he graduated, they performed the entire "Barber of Seville" with sets, costumes, staging and a wall of amplifiers. Five hundred people came, the group's first success.

On a retreat afterward, they decided to keep going. Let's try to play 10 gigs before the end of the year, they said. And they did, at Berbati's Pan, Hawthorne Theatre, The Woods and Back Space Cafe.

Feedback was encouraging. After Vivaldi's "Spring" from the "Four Seasons," a fan told Ray, "I've heard 'Spring' a million times and I've always hated it, but you actually made me enjoy it."

View full sizeThomas Boyd/The OregonianOn cue, kids give the horn sign whenever they hear a trill in Vivaldi's music.Ray's madness has a method. "People our age, they're surprised they recognize a tune. We pick tunes our generation knows, so they go, 'Wait a minute, that's "Spring" and suddenly they're in the classical world. We just cheat to get them in."

The Electric Opera Company incorporated last summer and appointed one of its players, Adam Goodwin, to be education director, asking schools if the ensemble could play for assemblies. They wear silly costumes, powdered wigs and Viking helmets, and start a typical assembly with questions while a traditional recording of the overture to "The Barber of Seville" plays in the background.

"Who here likes classical music?" Tepid response.

"Who here gets bored by classical music?" Hands go up.

View full sizeThomas Boyd/The OregonianBobby Ray (right) impresses the kids with a power version of the famous Largo al Factotum aria from Rossini's "The Barber of Seville."Without a pause, the guitarists pick up where the orchestra is playing. "By the end, the kids are jumping up, really excited," Ray says.

"The goal is to reach new ears and make old ears listen to music in new ways," Ray says. "To revitalize opera into popular culture."

Some of those new ears at George Middle School perk up when Ray asks for volunteers to conduct the band. It's their chance to tell a bunch of grown-ups what to do -- play fast, play slow, play loud, play soft.

Davon Ducre, 12, can't be persuaded to take the baton, but 5-year-old Jantazha does. After a quick tutorial on the proper beat pattern for Mozart's "Eine kleine Nachtmusik," she's off. It's a difficult pattern to master, but Jantazha keeps the band going with a clear chopping motion. The band rushes when she rushes, spreading a huge grin across her face.

"It felt great because I know I can do it," Jantazha says of her star turn. "I think my mom will be proud of me."

Says Ducre, who danced through the entire performance, "I like opera. I like the way it was put on guitar. I might try conducting."